Fallout Online dev quote roundup

You wouldn't be able to find out what the secret bonus was until much later in the game, and the bonus itself probably wouldn't kick in until you've reached some milestone.

There would be a way to discover what the bonus was at some point. Quest, NPC, level milestone, a byproduct of another Perk... the exact method is still TBD.

The bonus could affect combat, but it would be situational and the effect would be similar to a Rank 1 combat Perk (i.e., there would be an effect, but it would not be overpowering). It might not affect combat, however.

The secret bonus would be influenced (but not completely controlled) by several factors that are under player control.

”

“

There will still be Traits and this system would not replace 'em.

As for re-rolling: Nothing is going to prevent people from re-rolling, if they wish. When they discover it is still up in the air, as mentioned here:

http://interplay.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=5736&start=190#p29352

But it would later in character development. A significant amount of time will have passed before the bonus is activated/revealed. The exact amount of time is still TBD.

We try to read as much as possible, but lately, it's been hard to keep up with everything! ^_^

Some things are pretty locked down, like the combat system. We had a strong concept for the combat system from the very beginning. It's not FO1/2, and it's not VATS. It's a SPECIAL based system that works in a MMO environment. You can say it's specially designed for us. We never intended for it to be a FPS or pure shooter. Character skill and stats are very important to the combat system. Probably 50% of the equation. Character gear, player skill, decision making and timing make up the other half.

Like I've said in the past, what gets said here does influence us, naturally, but we do have a very strong vision for the game, so we're not rewriting it based on what we read.

There have been more than a few moments where this forum has made us realize that there was something missing (hey, it's a big game design, there are gaps here and there) or we could tweak it one way or another because we hadn't fully fleshed out that particular feature.

We've got our own strong idea of what the game should be, and we're confident in our skills and experience as game developers. But that doesn't mean we don't listen to the community. Honestly, however, I'd say that it's very difficult for the community to understand the game as a whole at this stage. When we get to beta testing, and people have a chance to play the game instead of discussing it in theory, it will be better for everyone involved.

I saw a post or two about the naming of "Guilds", and hoping for something other than "Guild" as the name of a player-based social group.

Well, we tried. Internally, we called them something else. We set up wiki pages for the new name, all references in the design docs used the new name, etc... And we kept referring to them as guilds whenever we had a discussion.

Finally, we caved in. If people are going to call them guilds, we might as we support that.

So, our "guilds" are Guilds. Yar, it's not quite appropriate ("Faction" is reserved for something else, and "blankity-blank-blank", the name that we tried to get people to use, was stolen by another part of the design and co-opted to do something else), but it's what everybody uses.(1)

(1) Geek op-ed piece: It annoys me when a paper-and-pencil RPG calls the DM something besides DM, if fantasy, or GM if anything. A GM is a GM. It's not a keeper, or a storyteller, or a HPIC or whatever. It's a GM.

There are too many design limitations for porting what we're planning on to a TV/Console. Readable text, icons, buttons, other UI considerations, movement, chat, and pretty much anything that has to do with seeing something on screen, moving something on screen or interacting with something on screen. The difference between a TV and a monitor is far, far greater (for most people) than we can deal with at this time.

We're focusing on the personal computer environment. Trying to get this to play on 99% of the TVs out there would force us to compromise the PC version.

Besides, we don't have the right to make a console version, so this discussion, while interesting, can't change that.